Rogers Communications had made several attempts to launch a multicultural station in Vancouver similar to its successful CFMT in Toronto.

[4] The station first signed on the air on June 27, 2003; branded on-air as "channel m", CHNM originally operated from studio facilities located at the intersection of Pender and Columbia Streets in Vancouver's Chinatown.

In the mid-2000s, CHNM previously produced several station IDs and program promos using a diversity theme to capitalize on the station's former slogan "Diversity Lives Here", these including spots featuring Chinese lion dancers that emerge from their lion costume with their faces painted in orange and white, the colours of the BC Lions franchise of the Canadian Football League, along with slogans supporting the team; a South Asian dancer who performs her routine to the Channel M jingle, then breaks into a country and western dance; and a leather-clad Sikh motorcyclist who boards his bike to the Channel M jingle, arranged and performed in a style mixing ZZ Top-style blues rock with East Indian music.

CHNM migrated its operations into sister station CKVU's studio facilities at 180 West 2nd Avenue (near the Vancouver Olympic Village) on September 7, 2010.

That same year, CHNM won its first-ever Jack Webster Foundation Award for Excellence in Chinese Language Reporting, for a multi-part feature on the topic of earthquake preparedness.

Until the beginning of the 2015–16 season, the station also aired a sizable amount of English-language American programming, including syndicated reruns of popular sitcom Two and a Half Men.

On May 7, 2015, Rogers announced a restructuring of Omni News programs as part of cutbacks that led to the loss of 110 jobs across the company.